The handyman talks of time won first prize in the 2008 Shoalhaven Literary Award. The big stumps at Cambarville was Highly Commended in the 2005 Woorilla Poetry Prize. See photo below. Just from memory I think there are around 20 old stumps in the 'field'. Werewolf was Highly Commended in the 2015 Shire of Nillumbik Ekphrasis Poetry Award (written in response to the painting Werewolf by Tess Edwards - see photo below). this mute and tidy skull and cross bones was Highly Commended in the 2016 Shire of Nillumbik Ekphrasis Poetry Award (written in response to Untitled #4 (fox bones - pattern) by Jessie Imam - see photo below).

The handyman talks of time

four million years oldand still bouncing

he often started that waysomething plucked from the air

the old eastern grey kangaroo

the familiar pause

can't argue with thefossil evidence

then he took two short stripsof 75mm pineand laid them on the groundparallel and a boot length apart

imagine how many kangarooshave stood right here

pointing down with his leg

in all thosefour million yearson this very spot

he pausedI didn't know how to answer

and where this spot has beenand what it's beena swamp a creekhad a tree in it

he took a deep breathand sighed it out

silence for a while

and on this spotthe way the continent drifts

he picked up a thick flat off-cutslid it around the airlike a glass on a ouija board(almost from instinctrubbed the raspalong the edgesof his continent)

and tilts and liftsstretches contracts and spinsyou can't triangulate itfrom higher ground'cause that changes tooso where we are here

pointing with his leg

wasn't here four millions years ago

looked at me intently

maybe further up the hillfurther down the creekwho knowsthe earth's not solidit's fluid likea slower form of waterthicker and slower

he sat on the plankbetween the sawhorsesthat he used as a benchand paused a while

then he started againwith a tone suggesstinghe was tired of thinkingand would get backto the pergolaI was paying him for

my grand-daughterwants to be a vetloves kangaroostold me the other daythey hop aroundlike music in a fur coat

The big stumps at Cambarville

the sign calls itan historic villagebut it's just a clear spaceof long grasswith about a dozenbig rot-grey stumpsthat look like termite moundsit's the size of a small town'scricket fieldperhaps the village greenbut more likely a tent cityfor the timber cuttersand you can still seethe notches where those menjammed their planks inswung their axesand killed the king treeslike attracts like sadlymaybe if they'd spreadthemselves around morebut then . . . maybe notthe notches seem likestylised eyes and mouthson god statuesone of the big stumpsis nearly two metres acrossmost are around two metres highthe ankle bones of tall treesthey could be ruins from the Incasor the Fertile Crescentbut this isAustralian archaeologyand the big stumpsare all that's leftof an old green cityits wind creak and bird-whistleits high leafy suburbspossum cough and snake tradethe cockatoo wars of 1623

Werewolf

I scour the night and my tribe's archive.The town I savour will be bandage soaked in blood.

In the pages of my fore-hunters -my sire, my dam, my grandfather -I read the history of howl (which I've become)and of our big trick - we are not leopards.Spots. Stripes. Bristles. Spear-ears. Fourlegs. Two. Ecstasy of change and undead.

I savour the night and my tribe's archive.The town I've scoured is bandage soaked in blood.

this mute and tidy ​skull and cross bones

this mute and tidy skull and cross bonesfrom which the spirit and growl has fledthis slab-board symmetryof pretty opalescent leftoversthis immaculate diaspora​of the harder partsinsults my goddish complexitymy blood pump and air pumpand the fang clamp of juicy death

and Christ how fast I wasevasion was my second art​the russet Houdini of drygrass farms